The Writing of my Place in History

You have been on Twitter for some time now. You know how hard it is to get ONE twitter follower. The one day, you open twitter and see this:

Yes, that’s my Twitter handle up there: @FRANKKENYAN. And I got supended from Twitter this last Sunday!

Oh. The panic! I was with some friends chatting away, checking Twitter every few minutes. Then I refreshed the page. And saw that. And the mood changed.

How was I to get those followers again? Notice the 0 following, the 0 followers, and the suggestions? As if I am a complete newbie. I decided the unimaginable. I would never return to twitter!

The first thing I do when I wake up is check my twitter, and that’s exactly what I did the following morning, and my heart sank AGAIN when I met the damning statement.

What would you do? This is what I did, out of sheer faith.

1. Read the rules.

No one reads any TOS. They don’t amount to anything after all!

Yeah, me too! But Twitter has rules, which it actually follows! You need to read them to see what might have caused the brutal punishment! The rule I figured I had broken is Randomly or aggressively Retweeting accounts through automation Just a few hours before the suspension, I had read around the web and discovered a retweet tool which retweets #Hashtags, @users and keywords. So, I decided to retweet Kenya and #SocialMedia.-I love both.

2. Appeal

Just click on the link provided. You will land on a page where you can submit an appeal. When I say Appeal, I mean Appeal. Not demand. Beg, if you may. Okay, be polite and concise with your appeal; getting angry will not help. If you genuinely don’t know what you’ve done wrong (as I didn’t) then say so, but if you have an idea that it could be that third party app you’re using, say, like I did:

Yesterday, my account got suspended, and I would like to explore re-instating options with you. I have read the “Following rules and best practices and best Practices” and I would attest that I am not using an automated multi-following app. However, the day before yesterday, I signed up to an app called Roundteam that tracks and Retweets certain words. I figured it would be a boost to me as I was Retweeting keywords in my field of interest. Is that forbidden? I have since Revoked its access, and all third party apps I have been using. Is there anything more I have to do to get my account back?Please help, I would love to get my follow list back.

3. Respond to the Automated mail

As a confirmation, I received an automated email from Twitter, which I HAD to respond to to activate the ticket. Make sure you reply the email and ensure you read the entire mail to know exactly what twitter wants you to do. Reply the mail stating why you think your account was suspended and if you don’t know why stating that your account was suspended wrongly.

4. Sit back, try to relax, and wait.

That’s hard, so I found myself checking my email and twitter every few minutes. Your account will; most likely be restored. Mine took less than 12 hours, phew! Some may take even up a week, or forever! I am told you normally get a confirmation email. I got none, I just found my Twitter working.

Another thing: Your Follow lists will not come immediately! Might take an hour, or so. Don’t panic when you get confronted by 0 Followers, 0 Following……

So, I got my account back, and I am happy.

Don’t go through this, avoid a Twitter Suspension by:

Not following, favouriting, retweeting, mentioning other people aggressively and randomly.

Double-checking what apps have access to your account and revoke unnecessary ones

Taking care not to get hacked. Have a strong password, and change it oftenly.